Carolina Faces Fsu With Much To Prove

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

TALLAHASSEE — Dial the clock back 51 weeks and you find North Carolina engulfed, Florida State enraged.

Never in the Atlantic Coast Conference was there buildup of a football game like FSU-North Carolina in 1997, a meeting of undefeated top-five teams with national championship implications.

Never, in fact, had there been an ACC game between such highly ranked teams. Nor had it seen a Tar Heels team so confident facing an FSU team so insulted at being written off for the league championship.

Finally, the ACC had a program ready to spit the Seminoles' game right back at them.

Finally, football took center stage on Tobacco Road.

Nearly one year later, almost all the remnants of FSU's 20-3 triumph in Chapel Hill have disappeared. Vengeance does not overwhelm the Tar Heels' hearts. Respect does. So does humbleness.

North Carolina faces No. 5 FSU (7-1, 4-1 in the ACC) tonight at Doak Campbell Stadium with no ranking, no swagger and a one-game hope of regaining the stature it lost from an improbable 0-3 start.

``The thing I like about our football team is they underwent adversity, not letting it disturb them, and focused on the task at hand,'' said Carolina coach Carl Torbush, who replaced Mack Brown when Brown left for Texas in December.

``Our season is one in which we could very easily be 5-1 or one in which we could be 1-5,'' Torbush said. ``It's been that kind of season for the Tar Heels. We should grow as a team and grow as a program.''

Growing above .500 isn't what the Tar Heels (3-3, 2-1) had in mind for '98. Despite key losses to the NFL, a new backfield, a young secondary and a first-year coach, North Carolina was pegged as a top 10 team again.

Even Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, seeing quarterback Oscar Davenport returning with three veteran receivers and a defense that appeared close to ones that caused the Seminoles problems for three years, sensed another strong season.

Then Miami of Ohio won in Chapel Hill 13-10.

Then Stanford outscored the Tar Heels 37-31.

And then Georgia Tech won at North Carolina 43-21, for the first time since World War II.

Not too many people remembered Carolina was 22-2 the previous two seasons.

``We got tired of everybody asking what's going on,'' UNC defensive end Ebenezer Ekuban said. ``After a while you must figure out the best way to get rid of that question. The best way was to say we had a lot to improve on.

``It was hard, I'm not going to lie to you. There was a lot of people giving us grief, because there were a lot of expectations. That's when you find out who your real fans are.''

Truth be told, it took the Tar Heels a month to shake the cobwebs from their opening upset loss. It was their only beating in three years to an unranked team _ to any team other than FSU.

Carolina has won three in a row, and Torbush has reminded his players they're mathematically still in the ACC title hunt. Four conference teams _ UNC, FSU, Georgia Tech and Virginia _ have only one league loss.

``Mentally we're a lot further along than we were the first two weeks of the year when we were trying to figure out who we were and where we were,'' Torbush said. ``Right now we have not arrived. We're 3-3 and headed in the right direction. . . . If we win out, we have a chance to have a great football team.''

Still, a rivalry among top-five teams has been reduced, at least for entertainment value, to one between a receiver and his shadow.

Florida State flanker Peter Warrick leads the ACC with nine receiving touchdowns. North Carolina junior cornerback Dre' Bly is the only player in Tar Heels history to be an All-American as a freshman and a sophomore.

Warrick sprained his right ankle Wednesday and missed Thursday's workout because of a family matter. He will not start and will play at Bowden's discretion.

Bly and Warrick were busy this week keeping up with each other through the media and via the Internet.

Bly has promised plentiful man-to-man coverage on Warrick, who said he hopes to add his name to the short list of receivers (two) who have beaten Bly for a touchdown.

``The thing about me is I don't back down to anything,'' Bly said. ``I'm competitive and confident. I'm going to be on Pete every time he's on the field. He's going to have to be ready to lock up with me all game because I'm going to be ready to lock up with him.''